At the World Government Summit in Dubai being held Feb. 8 to 10, which wraps up today, world leaders and grey-haired bureaucrats from the United Nations, World Bank, and other agencies discussed how governments can help their countries’ people adapt to relentless social and technological change.

Sadly, few of those moguls attended Nicolas Cary’s presentation on Day 2. The 28-year-old co-founder and CEO of London-based Blockchain sees the future more clearly than most — and he believes the Internet and Bitcoin will together create a global network of trust that will transform not just the way we bank, but how we do business and how citizens interact with governments.

This is not just a story about Bitcoin, which Cary calls “email for money.” It’s about what comes next. Blockchain is the name given to the cloud-based digital ledger that records every transaction ever made with Bitcoin. It’s open-source, all-encompassing, and, because copies are distributed instantly all over the world, incorruptible and unhackable.

“Nobody has custody or control over the blockchain,” Cary says. “Anyone can write to it, but no one can erase it,” making the blockchain the most comprehensive and secure financial record ever created. The blockchain enables people and businesses to exchange digital money with complete trust — without knowing each other, and free of costly intermediaries such as banks and payment companies (e.g., Visa, MasterCard and PayPal).

Blockchain, the company launched in 2011, has no official capacity in the blockchain world, but it has grown quickly to become one of the most trusted names in Bitcoin-related services. It has developed the world’s most popular Bitcoin “wallet” (the platform through which individuals buy and sell digital money), and produces applets upon which other developers build new Bitcoin software.

So far, Blockchain has given most of its products away, including more than three million digital wallets (a number growing by 100,000 a week). Revenue has come from advertising on its site. But in October, Blockchain completed a US$30-million Series A funding round, which included investors such as Richard Branson, London-based Mosaic Ventures, and Silicon Valley’s Lightspeed Venture Partners. The funds will be used to develop new products and expand Bitcoin’s use to the next 100 million users — when it will make its real money from partnerships with leading international players that want to better understand and exploit the Bitcoin revolution.

For now, Bitcoin is still small potatoes. But 100,00 retailers, including Dell and Microsoft and Time Inc., accept Bitcoin payments, and in the past year the number of daily Bitcoin transactions has more than doubled.

How far can Bitcoin and the blockchain grow? Cary outlined a range of possibilities in his presentation to the summit and in a follow-up interview with the Financial Post:

Bitcoin will become the leading, low-cost payment mechanism for millions worldwide: “Imagine a world with infinite transactions, where you can send money instantly for free, from Patagonia to Singapore.” No more banking or wire-transfer fees, no interference from states, and no capital-depleting currency-exchange charges. “It’s very different from the transaction networks we’re used to,” Cary says. “And much more efficient.” Getting started, he adds, is easier than you think: “Signing up for a Bitcoin account is as easy as setting up for an email account.”

The blockchain records every transaction, so there’s no doubt whether or not someone you’re selling to has the required funds or has sent them to you. In time, Cary says, the blockchain will be seen as “a ledger that records and manages all the chains of life,” not just financial transactions.

Bitcoin is “money, improved,” Cary says. Why would we want to improve on money? Consider that more than two billion people don’t have access to banks, and as a Goldman Sachs survey found, 30 per cent of millennials don’t believe in bank accounts. “The digital world is part of our DNA now,” Cary says. And digital money that can be securely shared, anytime, anywhere, is as natural as carrying your own phone around every day instead of leaving it at home plugged into a wire.

“Digital money is just application 1.0 for Bitcoin,” Cary says. Once people trust the blockchain, Cary expects other platforms to be built on top of it. Security systems, identity management, even national voting systems could be redesigned to use the blockchain’s authority and transparency. One system could let you buy tracks on iTunes or vote in a monthly referendum, while letting you restrict how much information you share with whom. “You can be the owner of your own data,” Cary says. Another benefit is that companies would no longer have to build virtual vaults around customer data. By trusting identity-verification to the blockchain cloud, they could save millions of dollars.

The digital world is part of our DNA now

Supply-chain management is a key opportunity. The blockchain could be used to track shipments of parcels, packages and container ships, using a shared and trusted platform — reassuring receivers while saving shipping companies the costs of building their own systems.

Finally, Cary sees Bitcoin as “programmable money.” You could program your Bitcoin account to micro-manage your interests the same way you program your thermostat to adjust room temperature 10 times a day. “Imagine you’re running late to the airport. You can pay your cab a little more to go faster, and you could pay other cars to get out of your way so you can get to the airport on time,” Cary says.

“You have to have a digital global value-transfer system before you can unlock the value of the Internet,” Cary contends. “Before you can have an Internet of Things, you need a payment network that can facilitate hundreds of millions of transactions a minute.”

Rick Spence is a writer, consultant and speaker specializing in entrepreneurship.